Update (28.02.2022) – The trial was postponed to a later date yet to be announced. Ali Kişmir, the President of the Cyprus Turkish Journalists’ Union, Basin-Sen, faces a 10-year prison sentence for an article published a year and a half ago. The European and International Federation of Journalists (EFJ and IFJ) demand the lifting of criminal charges against him. Turkish Cypriot columnist Ali Kişmir could face up to 10 years in prison for “insulting and mocking the security forces” in an opinion piece he wrote over a year ago. Kişmir, a columnist for the newspaper Özgür Gazete Kıbrıs, is expected…

Today the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joins its partners in the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) in launching our annual report documenting our organisations’ systematic monitoring of media freedom violations across Europe in 2021. Between January and December 2021, a total of 626 alerts were documented on the Mapping Media Freedom platform across EU Member States, candidate countries and the United Kingdom – ranging from physical attacks to SLAPP lawsuits and online harassment. A total of 1,063 individuals or media entities in 30 countries were subject to one or more press freedom violations, including the murder of three journalists – underscoring the…